Nessa’s concentration in art history was the Renaissance, but she had taken several courses on modern art, including one that combined the study of Picasso with Matisse. Guernica had taken up about a week’s worth of lectures, thanks largely to the photos that had been taken of its evolution. She remembered an afternoon’s discussion of studies for the painting; there had been six at the very beginning, a rush of ideas the first day. Possibilities had evolved on the canvas itself. One of the students—Karl, long hair, glasses—had suggested Picasso was considering companion pieces or even variations. The professor said there had been rumors of such pieces, but none had surfaced after the war.

Was Elata seeking to create those pieces? It was the sort of grand, bold artistic gesture he was known for—Doigts was unintimidated in the face of genius. He was, after all, a genius himself.

“Why the paint, though?” she asked aloud. “To get the color right? One color?”

And then she realized they had looked at things backwards.

“He has a Picasso,” she told her partner. “From this period. He’s trying to authenticate it.”

“C’e?”

“Who else but a master forger would know all the tricks? It must be.” She jumped up from her desk. “An unknown Picasso, painted around the time of Guernica—perhaps even intended as a companion. It would be worth millions. Many millions.”

“Magnifique,” said Jairdain. “Now all we have to do is find the bastard, and we will both be the most famous Interpol detectives of all time.”

Nessa frowned and picked up another carrot.

Bull Pass, Antarctica

She had been alone in the blackness for hours, or what seemed like hours, before she heard the scream.

Her hands cuffed in front of her, she’d sunk down in a corner after they took him, her knees pulled to her chest, welded rivets pressing into her spine. Hunkered in that angle between two walls, she’d listened numbly to the pounding of machinery somewhere outside the cage. The noise and blackness seemed one, merged. A grinding, shapeless thing wrapped around her, confining her as surely as the walls of the cage itself.

After a while she had slipped into a faded, bottomed-out semblance of sleep, only to be awakened by the scream, startling as a rocket flare inside her head. But when she came back to full alertness, she heard nothing. Nothing but the machines grating away out there.

Out there in the black.

She felt her heart bumping in her chest now, felt her temples throbbing, pulled in a breath of stale air. It helped a little, but not much. God, God. That single, piercing scream. Maybe she’d imagined it. She’d been woozy with fatigue before she nodded off. Very possibly she’d imagined it.